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FIRE & ICE: MAGICAL TEACHINGS OF GERMANY'S GREATEST SECRET OCCULT ORDER |
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Chapter 1: A History of the Brotherhood of Saturn
As with all organizations of an occult nature, accurate and consistent historical data for the FS is hard to obtain. On some aspects there is an abundance of information, while on others we are left to speculate. In this chapter, I want to trace the history of the FS as an organization and as an idea, and at the same time remain as much as possible within the context of events in the contemporary occult subculture.
Documents within the FS [1] point to the idea that on some mystical level there is a connection between the ancient mysteries of the Germanic past and the Fraternitas Saturni. It is held that there were Saturnian Brotherhoods working as early as the end of the 1600s in Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. Also, it is indicated that there is a mystical connection between he Greco-Roman Saturnian Principle (fatum, fate) and the old Germanic high god, Wotan, whose name is also spelled in these documents as "Fuotan"; hence the link with fatum. Supposedly both Hoëne-Wronski [2] in the nineteenth century and Gregorius in the twentieth century made these connections. This Fuotan is seen as the All-ruling Principle of Fate, which does not itself succumb to the ultimate "Twilight of the Gods." It is understandable in light of the neo-Romantic Germanicism prevalent in late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Germany that FS doctrine would to some extent derive from the Germanic (or as they would have it, "Aryan") North rather than from the Mediterranean region. [3] Later, it was emphasized that the Brotherhood had its origins in the rituals of the Roman Saturnalia (which takes place around December 27th), [4] which made clear the FS's tendency away from the Christian world-view and toward a darker side of things. At one point, apparently between 1927 and 1933, there was a provision of the group that only "Christians" (i.e., non-Jews) could be initiated and that all neophytes had to acknowledge the basic "Nordic" ideology of the lodge.
This is mentioned to indicate the underlying belief that the FS itself has its mystical origins in the North, and that there was indeed an early Saturnian Brotherhood in the Scandinavian region whose history remains quite obscure. It was to these dim roots that the early FS traced its origins.
As far as the Scandinavian Brotherhood of Saturn that was supposed to have been working during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is concerned, all that is said is that it was active in alchemy and in mathematical and Pythagorean mysticism, and that this group was probably based on an even earlier brotherhood in the region. By the end of the eighteenth century those lodges had disappeared and nothing further was heard of them. [5]
According to FS documents, a Saturnian Brotherhood was revived in Warsaw by the mathematician and mystic Joseph Maria Hoëne-Wronski (1776-1853). This lodge was said to have had outer courts in Krakow, Posen, and Thorn. Ultimately these lodges were destroyed by various wars. [6]
Although the mysterious Hoëne-Wronski may have indeed revived a Saturnian lodge in Poland, the historical record makes it clear that he could not have remained active there, because by the time he was twenty-one he was studying philosophy in Germany. [7] Hoëne-Wronski spent most of his life as a Polish expatriate in France, where he is generally held to have been the magical initiator of Alphonse Louis Constant, or as he was better known, Eliphas Levi. [8] Hoëne-Wronski was indeed an "occult master" involved with the ideas of the Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and the teachings of Jakob Boehme, but he was also a well-respected (if a bit eccentric) mathematician and philosopher of his day. He was also dedicated to romantic social reform movements, and was the leader of a group called the "Antinomian Union." Among other things, Hoëne-Wronski held that humanity was to pass through five evolutionary stages, and that his theories would open the way to the fifth and final stage. Perhaps the most important of Hoëne-Wronski's theories was his Principle of the Absolute, which held that knowledge of truth was possible through human reason combined with a secret mathematical formula However, he never seems to have been able to communicate this formula. Related to this was his Law of Creation, which posited that man could "create reality" from the sum of his sense impressions, again combined with a mathematical formula.
The historical connections between Hoëne-Wronski and the FS are tenuous, but there are several points on which his theories and legacy touch upon the later development of the FS itself. Certainly not the least of these is his role as initiator of Eliphas Levi (between the years 1850 and 1853), who was to be instrumental in the general occult revival of the late nineteenth century.
Before we can fully understand the founding and subsequent development of the present FS from 1928, a more complete context for the magical revival in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany needs to be outlined. The German-speaking region of central Europe was itself the breeding ground of certain underground streams of occultism, but these were often so deep underground that they did not call much attention to themselves. Some of these currents were taken up by individuals and groups outside the region—especially in England, where we note the German roots of such organizations as the Golden Dawn and the O.T.O. [10]—and subsequently re-imported into the German- speaking world in a more popularized form The popular occult revival came somewhat later to Germany than it did to France and England, but once it did arrive it struck deeper roots there than it had elsewhere. [11] This might be due to the longstanding, subcultural presence of occultism already mentioned.
The most important single stream of the early magical revival in Germany and Austria for the history of the FS is that of quasi-Masonry, or Winkelmauerei, as it is called in German. Various Masonic and quasi-Masonic lodges had been active in Germany from at least the eighteenth century. [12] Many of them were highly secretive due to their own political activities or due to their fears of political suppression. Here we will only be concerned with those groups known to have done magical work and to have some connection with the eruption of occult activity in central Europe between the World Wars.
One of the most important, and certainly the most diabolically mysterious, of these shadowy lodges was the Free-Masonic Order of the Golden Centurium (FOGC). This order was supposedly founded in 1840 in Munich by some rich German industrialists and well- placed citizens. [13] The FOGC was an openly daemonological order that maintained magical contact with a tetrad of daemons: Barzabel (planetary demonium of Mars), Astaroth, Belial, and Asmodeus. The service of these entities was to provide the initiates he order with untold personal power, influence, and wealth.
In essence the FOGC was a cult of human sacrifice. The centurium in its name is Latin for a group or division of one hundred. Actually, the number of initiates in the lodge was limited to ninety-nine—the one-hundredth member of the order was the demonium itself. Each year a new member was elected and initiated, so the extra human initiate had to be sacrificed to the demonium. This whole affair was taken care of on the night of the twenty- third of June, St. John's Day. On that night, the lodge members would convene, and if no brother had died in the course of the year, a "lodge sacrifice" had to be chosen. This was done by drawing lots. The initiate chosen for this honor would then drink a poison draught in order to complete the sacrificial act. In the case of their refusal, this could be accomplished at a distance by means of the dreaded "Tepaphone" (German: Tepaphon)—a machine which, when coupled with the will of a magician, could kill anyone no matter where they were. This machine is also mentioned and described in the FS documents. The sinister FOGG plays a dominant role in the "magical autobiography" of Franz Bardon, Frabato, [14] wherein dramatic instances of the application of the Tepaphone are portrayed. Most of the material having to do with the FOGC seems quite legendary and fantastic in tone, but certain features of it are more practically treated in the FS materials.
Less mysterious, but still quite obscure, was the early work of Theodor Reuss, who is said to have revived the Order of Illuminati in Bavaria in 1880. There were even two new Orders of Illuminati, one headed by Reuss and another by Leopold Engel in Dresden. By 1899 these were unified, but they only worked together until 1902. After 1902, Reuss seems to have fully shifted his emphasis toward the development of the O.T.O. Engel continued with his branch of the order until 1924, and then founded a new Illuminati group, the World League of the Illuminati, in 1927. This newer order lasted until 1933, two years after Engel's death. [15]
After abandoning his efforts to revive Bavarian Illuminism, Theodor Reuss devoted himself to quasi-Masonic work that would culminate in the Ordo Templi Orientis. Reuss edited a journal called the Oriflamme from 1902 to 1923. This was a general outlet for various orders and lodges founded by Reuss, and was dedicated to an eclectic synthesis of Masonic, Rosicrucian, Templar, Gnostic, and certain forms of Indian occultism.
Reuss, who was a half-German, half-English, sometime singer, press agent, language teacher and spy, bought the charters of two Masonic organizations, the Ancient Primitive Rite of Memphis (95°) and the Egyptian Rite of Misraim (90°), from the English Mason John Yarker. These two groups were unified by Reuss in 1902 and called the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis and Misraim. Working with Reuss at that time were the well- known Theosophist Franz Hartmann and another occult figure named Joshua (also known as Heinrich) Klein. Hartmann had known Karl Kellner, founder of the O.T.O., since at least 1886, when the two collaborated on a form of inhalation therapy for tuberculosis based on Kellner's process of manufacturing cellulose. Klein ran a Utopian colony in Upper Bavaria called Erdsegen ("Blessings of the Earth"), which he established after inheriting a half-million marks. All three men—Reuss, Hartmann and Klein— were at one time or another involved with the progressive underground Utopian colony near Ascona, Switzerland, called Monte Verita. [16]
In its earliest phase, the O.T.O. was developed by a wealthy Viennese industrialist and high-grade Freemason, Karl Kellner. It began about 1896, but no documentation of it exists before it was mentioned in the Historische Ausgabe der Oriflamme (1904). [17] It was sometime between 1896 and 1904 that Reuss, Hartmann, and Klein began to collaborate with Kellner in their collective quasi-Masonic endeavors. Kellner had apparently already developed a system of sexual occultism based on what Indian Tantrism he was able to learn and on the teachings of the American sexual mystic Paschal Beverly Randolph, as transmitted through a French branch of Randolph's organization. Traditionally, Kellner is supposed to have travelled in the East, where he learned sexo-yogic secrets from three adepts, two of them Hindu and one Muslim. [18] Shortly after the collaboration among Kellner, Reuss, Hartmann and Klein began, Kellner died (1905), and Reuss became the Outer Head of the O.T.O.
Under Reuss the O.T.O. flourished as it never had before. In 1912, Reuss openly published the true nature of the work of the O.T.O. in the Oriflamme:
Also in that year, Reuss met with the English magician Aleister Crowley, whom Reuss supposedly accused of revealing the Order's secrets of sexual magic. Crowley really knew nothing about the techniques Reuss was alluding to, but the works of Crowley are so full of sexual references that it certainly seems that he did. A sort of mutual conversion took place, in which Reuss convinced Crowley of the power of the O.T.O. sex-magical technology and Crowley converted Reuss to the Aeonic Law of Thelema. In 1922, Reuss resigned his position in the O.T.O. due to poor health, nominating Crowley as his successor. Reuss died the next year. The Beast was, however, not immediately accepted as the new Outer Head of the Order (OHO). The translation of Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law) in German in 1925 was a watershed in that some dissidents were won over, while others were totally repulsed by the contents of the book. In time, the rituals and ideology of the old O.T.O. were "Thelemized" by Crowley's influence, and finally Baphomet (Crowley's O.T.O. nickname) was firmly established as the international Outer Head of the Order.
Besides the O.T.O. there was another group working in Germany in 1925 that had attracted Crowley's attention—the Pansophical Lodge, or Pansophia. This group was headed by Henrich Tränker (Br. Recnartus), and was founded originally as a loosely organized study group in Berlin shortly after the First World War. However, it soon became formalized as the "Grand Pansophical Lodge of Germany, Orient- Berlin." The Grand Master of this Lodge was Br. Recnartus, its Master of the Chair was Master Pacitus (Albin Grau), and its Secretary was Gregor A. Gregorius (Eugen Grosche). Another important initiate of this lodge was Karl Germer (Br. Saturnus), who was also the paid personal secretary of Heinrich Tränker. Tränker was the head of a whole eclectic, occult, "pansophical" movement made up of several orders, lodges, and societies. Some of his authority was derived from Theodor Reuss, at least according to Aleister Crowley's own account. [19] It was from contact between this group and Crowley that the Fraternitas Saturni under the Grand Mastery of Gregor A. Gregorius came to be founded in 1928. These affairs will be addressed later.
Finally, with regard to the quasi-Masonic background of the FS, these are the supposed German origins of Die Goldene Dämmerung—the Golden Dawn. This magical order was founded in England in 1888. Its own tradition holds that its authority was derived from a German order of the same name. Ellic Howe has carefully thrown a good deal of doubt on the whole tradition of the German origin of the organization in his Magicians of the Golden Dawn. [20] He contends that W. W. Wescott essentially forged the documents relevant to this tradition. Howe's arguments make a great amount of sense. An interesting question that remains is why Wescott would have chosen Germany as a source for his imaginary lodge. On the surface the explanation that Germany was suitably remote, yet plausible—at least more plausible than the subterranean Himalayas—seems reasonable. The specific choice of Germany, and not France, Italy, or Russia, perhaps originated in the more mysterious reputation the Germans had, as compared to that of other countries, among the English. One historical factor that may have led to this was the traditional presence of "Secret Chiefs" (Superiores Incogniti) in the German Masonic Order of the "Strict Observance," active since the middle of the eighteenth century. Ellic Howe speculates that Wescott did not have the Secret Chiefs in mind so much as he did the hidden mahatmas of Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. [21] This may well have been, but there were sufficiently deep and long-term, network-like connections between the German and English Masonic and quasi-Masonic groups to warrant the idea that these Secret Chiefs were thought to be akin to those of the Masonic Strikte Observanz.
As a feature of organization and doctrine this concept is inexactly reflected in the FS as the GOTOS entity—the guiding force of the order embodied in the 33°, which is actually the superhuman Saturnian Demiurge.
Whatever the origin of the idea of Secret Chiefs, it cannot be denied that the founding and development of the Theosophical Society had a transformative effect on the history of occult movements in Western society. The Theosophical Society was founded in New York in 1875, and its influence was felt throughout the occult subculture from that time on, [22] mainly in the popularization of occult ideas of the East and West and in the eclectic synthesis of these ideas into a more or less coherent whole.
Theosophy was introduced into the German-speaking world in the late 1870s by the Viennese Friedrich Eckstein. By 1884 it had been officially established in Germany. At about that time, a high official in the Theosophical Society in Adyar, India, Dr. Franz Hartmann, made a trip to Germany, where he met Karl Kellner and became involved with him in occult work of the kind mentioned above. Here there is a definite and early connection between a leading Theosophist and the future Outer Head of the O.T.O. Later, of course, Hartmann would be one of the leading figures of the German O.T.O. along with Klein and Reuss. Another Theosophist, Rudolf Steiner, also had O.T.O. connections. Theodor Reuss gave Steiner a charter to found an O.T.O. lodge in Berlin around 1906, while Steiner was General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in Germany. In all of this there is evidence that the world of quasi-Masonry in Germany was open to Theosophical ideas, and that individual Theosophists were also seeking deeper, practical magical applications of occult teachings in the ranks of the quasi-Masonic orders.
A further important contextual element for the development of the Fraternitas Saturni was the Ariosophical movement. Again there are vital interconnections with the Theosophical and quasi-Masonic worlds.
The most important single figure in the general Ariosophical movement was Guido von List (1848-1919). From early in his career he was in the Theosophical milieu in matters völkisch and occult. In the 1890s, he was involved with a Viennese literary society which included Rudolf Steiner and Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels (Adolf Joseph). [23] List was the son of a wealthy Viennese tradesman, but his talents and desires ran more to the literary and the occult. He eventually succeeded in winning a place for himself as a poet, novelist, and playwright within the largely establishment völkisch circles of Austria. Beginning in 1902, however, List gave full vent to his mystical inclinations, and embarked on the path of an occult master. In that year he underwent an operation for cataracts, after which his eyes were bandaged for eleven months. In this enforced state of blindness and darkness List was enlightened to the runic mysteries. (The runes are a system of written symbols used by the ancient Germanic peoples as a sacred or magical script. [24]) Two years later, List wrote his first occult study: Das Geheimnis derRunen. [25] The Ariosophical/ runic occultism of the FS is ultimately derived from this basic text, List's subsequent studies, and the magical work of those inspired by those studies, e.g. Friedrich Bernhard Marby and Siegfried Adolf Rummer. In the FS, Frater Eratus (Karl Spiesberger) was one of the leading exponents of rune magic. [26] The Guido von List Gesellschaft (society) was founded in 1905 to support the master and his work in occult Germanicism. Among the members of this society were Dr. Franz Hartmann and Lanz von Liebenfels.
Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, an ex-Cistercian monk, also became involved in the generally theosophical and völkisch milieu after 1900. In 1907 Lanz revived the order of the Templars—in the form of the Ordo Novi Templi (ONT)—the Order of the New Templars. This organization shared the use of Templar symbolism with the O.T.O. Both orders also revolved around sexual mysteries, but the kind of sexual mysticism practiced by the ONT and the O.T.O. were very different indeed. Lanz preached a doctrine of racial enlightenment through the practice of strict eugenics, through which the Grail of pure Aryan blood would be restored.
In addition to the previously stated Ariosophical leanings within the FS, the other significant shared elements between Ariosophy and the FS seem to have been their doctrines of a coming age of higher spiritual evolution, an interest in Templarism, and the belief in hidden masters. All but the interest in runes are also shared with Theosophy and quasi-Masonry.
In addition to quasi-Masonry, Theosophy, and Ariosophy, another branch of esoterica that burst on the scene in early twentieth-century Germany was astrology. Until sometime after 1914, astrology was just one more of the many arcane sciences practiced within the mysto- magical cultural milieu of quasi- Masonry, Theosophy, and Ariosophy. By the 1920s, however, astrology had become more popular in Germany than any of these other branches of occultism. The interest of the FS in astrology extends to the most esoteric levels of the subject in its doctrines concerning the Aquarian/Saturno-Uranian Age. But the attraction of widespread interest in a lodge with obvious astrological implications is clearly based on the popularization of astrology in the 1920s. [27]
It was in the context of these major streams of occultism that the Pansophical Lodge of Master Recnartus existed, and from which the Fraternitas Saturni was to emerge.
As mentioned before, Pansophia must be characterized as a movement overseen by Heinrich Tränker—Master Recnartus. Tränker, like Theodor Reuss, engineered a number of occult groups. And as we have mentioned before, Tränker is even supposed to have derived his Masonic authority from Reuss. The main period of activity for Master Recnartus was just after the First World War. At first, the "Pansophical Society" was a study group founded just after the war in Berlin. Their areas of interest included Gnosticism, the ancient mysteries of Greece, Egypt, and Babylon, as well as problems of philosophy, religious history, metaphysics, depth-psychology, "cosmosophy," and the Kabbalah. In the early 1920s, Tränker founded a Collegium Pansophicum. This organization, which may have existed only on paper, gave Tränker's work a more Masonic, orderly cast, and acted as a background for the publication of some of Tränker's occult works. In 1921 all the Pansophical streams governed by Tränker were brought together in the Grand Pansophical Lodge (of the Light-Seeking Brethren) of the Orient-Berlin.
Besides Tränker, one of the leading members of this lodge was Karl Germer (Frater Saturnus), who was Tränker's secretary and who later became the Grand Treasurer General of Crowley's O.T.O., and eventually Outer Head of the Order upon Crowley's death in 1947. Another leading figure was Albin Grau (Master Pacitus), who was also a set designer for the UFA studios in Berlin, where he designed the sets for such films as Nosferatu (1922) and Shadows (1923). (Indeed, there seems to have been a good deal of occult involvement among the German filmmakers of the pre-1933 era; some of the mysteries of this milieu have yet to be unraveled.) Finally, there was Eugen Grosche, who was initiated by Tränker and given the lodge name Gergor A. Gregorius. It was Gregorius who was the actual founder of the Pansophical Lodge and who was its general secretary. Gregorius ran an occult bookshop in Berlin at the time.
In the summer of 1925, the most important event leading to the emergence of the FS took place. Without apparently knowing very much about his teachings, Master Recnartus invited Aleister Crowley to his house in Weida in Thuringia, Germany. The purpose of this meeting was to confer the leadership of the groups controlled by Tränker onto Crowley. Or so it seemed.
After
Theodor Reuss died in 1923, the international leadership of the O.T.O.
passed to Crowley in England. Crowley had been an initiate of the Golden
Dawn from 1898 to 1900. In April 1904, while in Cairo, Egypt, Crowley
received a book—called the
Liber
AL vel Legis—which
was transmitted to him by a praeterhuman entity calling itself Aiwass.
This text is known more simply as the Book of the Law. With the
reception of this book Crowley began to function as a Magus, and
proclaimed a new Aeon with a new Word:
When Crowley met Theodor Reuss in London in 1912, the Great Beast found a more suitable institution in the O.T.O. Reuss made Crowley the head of the order in Britain at that time. Crowley took the magical name "Baphomet" for his elevation to the X°—the highest title the O.T.O. had to bestow. The secret of the O.T.O. is, as we know, the practice of sexual magic and mysticism. Crowley had up until this time partially understood such things, but with the reception of the O.T.O. teachings on this subject he began to delve into the practice almost exclusively. From 1912 until 1922, when Reuss suffered a stroke and retired from active participation in the order, there was a sense of collaboration between Baphomet and Merlin (Reuss). Crowley received the innermost magical secrets of the order, and Reuss had Crowley revise the rituals of the O.T.O. in a form which accorded with the Law of Thelema. Reuss apparently named Crowley to succeed him as O.H.O., but there was substantial resistance to this among members of the German O.T.O. It must be said that Baphomet rapidly spread both the O.T.O. and his Word, Thelema, in the English-speaking world through his own contacts and by means of The Equinox, in. which he began to print O.T.O.-related material after 1912. After Merlin's death in 1923, things moved inevitably to a crisis point. The German branch of the O.T.O. had apparently fallen into the control of Heinrich Tränker after the death of Reuss. This was perhaps due to the fact that Crowley's teachings were not universally acclaimed in Germany. The lack of acceptance stemmed both from Crowley's doctrine of the New Aeon—which had not yet appeared in German—and from Crowley's veiled references in his writings to the secret of the IX°—sexual magic. The German branch had generally guarded this secret closely, and only revealed it in part at the VIII0, where the secrets of solitary sex-magic were taught. Without being specific, Crowley had revealed too much to persons unprepared for such mysteries. When the overall picture in Germany at this time is assessed, it is clear that there was a split between those enthusiastic about Crowley's teachings and those highly suspicious of them.
It was into this set of circumstances that Crowley moved in that fateful summer of 1925. He, along with his entourage of Leah Hirsig, Dorothy Olsen, and Norman Mudd, left from Paris to go to the home of Heinrich Tränker in Weida. Karl Germer had paid for their trip to Germany. Crowley had sent a copy of the Book of the Law ahead to Weida, where it was promptly translated into German. The "Weida Conference," as it came to be known, was attended by Crowley's entourage, Heinrich Tränker (Grand Master of the German Rosicrucians and Pansophists), his wife Helene, Albin Grau (Master of the Chair of the Pansophical Lodge), Eugen Grosche (Secretary of the Pansophical Lodge), Karl Germer, Martha Küntzel, and a few other occult leaders. The real purpose of this conference was the acceptance or rejection of the Law of Thelema, and the exploration of the possibility of uniting several occult factions under the leadership of a New World Teacher—the Great Wild Beast 666.
Accounts of this conference vary in detail, scope, and conclusion; [28] certainly the most amusing account is that written by A.C. himself. None can be completely trusted, as each writer has some sort of ax to grind. But subsequent historical facts allow us to reconstruct the actual outcome of this occult conclave.
To begin with, the translation of the Book of the Law caused quite a stir. Both Albin Grau (Pacitus) and Tränker (Recnartus) were ill-disposed toward its antichristian stance. Recnartus is supposed to have softened his criticism and come to some new understanding of the book's contents. But Pacitus remained opposed, if tacitly. On the other hand, as subsequent events were to show, Gregorius was favorably impressed with the Beast and his Word. The conference ended with an obviously uneasy communique entitled "The Testament of a Seeker." Its text read:
Events following the so-called Weida Conference show just how uneasy this agreement was on all sides. Tränker and Grau renounced the communique almost immediately following the event, and eventually even Mudd (in 1927) and Leah Hirsig (in 1928) withdrew their support.
During the months and years following the meeting at Weida, Gregor A. Gregorius must have been studying and assimilating Crowley's teachings, as well as those of the Pansophists, Rosicrucians, and others in his environs. On Maundy Thursday 1926, the Pansophical Lodge was ritually closed and dissolved. On the following May 8, five Fratres founded the Fraternitas Saturni. This was to be a magical order which accepted the Law of Thelema, but which was to be totally independent of any other magical order. A few days later Gregorius wrote to the Beast, informing him of the aims of this revived Saturnian Lodge. The letter and the document outlining these early aims are printed here as Appendices F and G.
As far as the Rosicrucian-Pansophical Lodge faction and its leaders, Tränker and Grau, were concerned, there seems to have been a falling out over, among other things, the treatment of the Master Therion by Recnartus. It was rumored that Tränker had a hand in having Crowley expelled from Germany. [29] This was apparently one of the critical events which led to the final dissolution of the Pansophical Lodge in 1926. Although it is possible that Tränker and Grau continued their occult work, nothing more is heard of them in this capacity. A full one-third of the members of the Pansophical Lodge became the core of initiates of the FS.
Between May of 1926 and Easter Saturday 1928, the FS was further consolidated and refined into a more cohesive structure. It is this day in 1928 which actually serves as the date of the official magical inception of the FS.
After this there followed a period of intensive activity for the newly (re-) founded FS, especially in the environs of Berlin, where Gregorius had his bookshop. Gregorius began publishing FS material, some of which was available to the public, some of which was only for distribution within the Lodge. Five issues of the journal Saturn-Gnosis were printed. In this journal, articles on magical subjects by Gregorius and other writers within and without the FS, including Masters Pacitus and Therion, appeared. (Neither of these men had any official connection with the FS.) There was also a series often Magische Briefe (Magical Papers) published from 1926 to 1927 or 1928. These were for the most part supposed to be translated from English, and to have been written by To Mega Therion. However, it seems more likely that they were actually written by Gregorius or by other FS initiates, as they bear little resemblance to Crowley's typical work. Finally, in this period Gregorius produced a series of fourteen printed Lectures of the Lodge-School, as well as other interna for initiatory instruction. Many of these works were published by the lodge's own house, INVEHA.
The relationship between Aleister Crowley and his orders (the A...A... and the O.T.O.) and Gregorius and the FS was an ambivalent one. Gregorius had made it quite plain that although he accepted the Law of Thelema, he would accept no official relationship with Crowley or his organizations. On the whole it seems that Gregorius claimed a closer link with Crowley and his work than actually existed. FS materials, doctrines, and rituals, as can be seen in this book, are only laced with Crowleyanity—their shape and substance remain something other than what the Beast promulgated. There was some contact between Crowley and Gregorius between the years 1928 and 1933, and some opportunities for meetings. Crowley was in Germany in 1929, when he married Maria Theresa Ferrari de Miramar, and on different occasions in 1930 he was in Berlin during some rather frantic affairs. [30] Most of Crowley's influence on Gregorius seems to have come through his published writings, many of which were translated into German by initiates of the FS. Gregorius was later to publish translations of magical works taken from Magick in Theory and Practice (1929). The actual accomplishment of Gregorius and the FS was a more or less cohesive synthesis of Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Luciferianism, astrological mythology, Crowleyanity (or Thelemism), sex-magical practices of the old O.T.O., various Indian yogic systems, and medieval and modern doctrines of alchemy and ritual magic.
The great storm-cloud broke over the Fraternitas Saturni and all other Masonic and quasi- Masonic lodges in Germany on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler, Führer of the NSDAP, took the oath as chancellor of Germany. By the next month emergency powers had been invoked and many groups thought to be of a subversive nature, from Communists to Masons, were suppressed. This began a process in which secret societies and occult orders of all kinds began to be systematically suppressed. Most sources on the history of the FS state that the lodge was closed and banned in 1933. [31] Certainly Gregorius' bookstore and the publishing house would have been closed down by 1934. In 1935 another wave of "voluntary" dissolutions of secret societies followed. Finally, in a declaration of Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler in 1937, all occult and quasi-Masonic organizations, even the völkisch ones that had generally and originally been supportive of National Socialist aims, were banned. These völkisch groups included those founded by Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels. Early in this cycle of bannings Gregorius is said to have emigrated first to Switzerland and then to Cannero, Italy. There he remained until October of 1943, when he was arrested and extradited back to Germany through pressure from the Nazi government. He was released on his own recognizance after only one year, and apparently allowed to continue his occult studies after his release. After the war ended in 1945, Gregorius set about refounding the FS. There is more than one odd aspect to these events of 1933 to 1945 . We know very little about what actually happened to Gregorius in these years. The fact that someone extradited from a foreign country by the Nazis would then just simply be let go after a year's detention—and then allowed to continue his suspect activities within Germany—is almost unbelievable.
Supposedly Gregorius was able to maintain contact with many of the Fratres of the FS while he was in Switzerland and Italy. After the war, he called the Brothers together to reorganize the order; but as he found himself at that time in Riesa in the Soviet occupation zone, it was impossible to carry out the work of the Order. It was not until 1950 that Gregorius went to the Western zone of occupation and from there to West Berlin. His five-year sojourn in the east is also rather odd.
In any event, in 1950 the FS again became active and the first issues of the Blätter fur angewandte okkulte Lebenskunst ("Papers toward the Applied Occult Art of Life") began to appear. About twelve issues of these per year continued to be published until 1962.
On March 18, 1957 the FS was declared the Grand Lodge of the Fraternitas Saturni at Berlin. At that time there were outer courts in many German cities. Of course, Gregorius was named its Grand Master. The period from 1957 to the date of Gregorius' death in 1964 was one of intensive activity and growth for the order, but the time between 1960 and 1964 was apparently beset with various internal problems generally characterized as a power struggle between Gregorius and Grand Chancellor Amenophis. [32] Upon the death of the GM Gregor A. Gregorius in January of 1964, these internal conflicts became more acute.
Between the time of Gregorius' death and 1969 there were numerous conflicts within the FS. The "First Council of the Grand Lodge" met at the Easter Festival Lodge meeting of 1964 and elected Magistra Roxane, who had been the Lodge Secretary and a close personal associate of Gregorius, as the next GM. Several long-time initiates left the order at that time. Within a year Roxane was dead. In 1966 a triumvirate was elected under the leadership of Magistri Giovanni, the Lodge Secretary. Frater Daniel 12° was subsequently elected to the Grand Mastery. The fact that a Frater of such a relatively low degree was elected to the Grand Mastery could have been taken as an ill omen.
Daniel set about reorganizing the Brotherhood. One of his innovations was the installation of an "inner circle" of initiates within the FS itself. This was the Alter und Mystischer Orden der Saturnbruderschaft— AMOS-OMS (Old and Mystical Order of the Brotherhood of Saturn). Only nine initiates could belong to the AMOS. These actions led to even more dissension.
In 1969, yet another GM was elected. This time the Brother, Br. Jananda 8°, was of an even lower grade. Jananda had entered the order only in 1964, so the lineage of Gregorius had already been virtually broken with this election. This precipitated a crisis that indirectly caused the internal documents of the FS to be published. Daniel continued with a schismatic FS, while another schismatic group calling itself the "Theosophical Order Fraternitas Saturni" under GM Immanuel was formed in Frankfurt. The main body of the FS elected a new GM known as Andrzey. Therefore, there were at least three groups working under the FS banner in 1969.
Apparently it was the former GM Daniel who gave or sold a mass of internal documents in 1969 to Prof. Dr. Adolf Hemberger, who then published many of them in his 1971 study of the organization. The FS had, up until that time, been a truly secret lodge which preserved those rituals and practices they wanted to keep hidden from outsiders. Now the whole interna, or at least the vast majority of them, had been exposed. This led to the necessary reorganization of the system. On Easter Saturday of that same year, the various factions of the FS reunified.
The material used in this book comes from the period before 1969 and therefore does not reflect the rituals and doctrines of the Fraternitas Saturni as it is working in the world today.
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